INVERCLYDE is today bracing for another jobs blow after a major UK employer confirmed 'unsettling' news at its Greenock site.

Premier Inn owner Whitbread is preparing for potential redundancies at Brewers Fayre restaurant The Point on the town's James Watt Way.

The company - which announced plans to axe 1,500 roles nationwide in April - yesterday refused to be drawn on details about its intention for Greenock.

But a well placed source told the Telegraph that local staff were informed last week that the restaurant is set to shut.

The source said: “Staff at The Point Whitbread restaurant in Greenock have now had it confirmed that it is closing.

“They have all been told they will get redundancy.”

The job losses announced by Whitbread in April are part of a restructuring which will see the company move away from running external restaurants - like The Point.

Whitbread said that the proposals could affect its Greenock site.

But the company refused to even confirm the number of staff whose jobs are potentially at risk.

Whitbread also declined to clarify whether the restaurant would be closed and replaced with a new integrated restaurant, or if it would be sold on.

A company spokesperson told the Telegraph: "We won’t be adding further at present on this one as everything is still live."

Whitbread stressed that the proposals were still subject to consultation and highlighted that The Point was still open and in operation.

The company's spokesperson said: “We recognise that this will be unsettling for our team members, and we are providing them with dedicated support.

“We are committed to working hard to enable as many as possible of our affected team members to stay with us by either transferring into new roles, or by taking up other vacancies across the business more broadly through our existing recruitment activity.”

In a release issued in April, Whitbread PLC stated that 466 of its hotels currently provided a food and beverage offer through a neighbouring restaurant.

It stated that while UK hotel performance had gone from ‘strength-to-strength’, the performance of some branded restaurants had been affected by a drop in footfall from non-hotel guests.

They then went on to outline plans for the next two years, which would see around 112 of the ‘lower-returning’ restaurants replaced with integrated restaurants.

They also revealed that they were planning to pull out of a further 126 restaurants, with the venues continuing to operate so they can be sold as going concerns.

Whitbread confirmed that its 387 integrated restaurants and the 196 ‘better performing’ branded restaurants would not see any changes.